XXIV. THE BOOK OF THE SLOPE

 

Legends

It took twenty years to recover the first human band of sooners—a sizeable group who fled to the scrublands south of the vale, rejecting the Covenant of Exile that their leaders had signed, just before the Tabernacle went tumbling to the depths. They risked both desolation and the law in order to get away, and had to be dragged back, shuddering in dread, all because they could not bring themselves to trust hoon or traeki.

In retrospect this seems so ironic, since it was qheuens and urs who caused human settlers grief during two subsequent centuries of war. Why then did so many Earthlings fear the peaceful ringed ones, or our cheerful friends with the broad shoulders and booming voices? The star-cousins of both traeki and hoon must have seemed quite different when our ancestors’ first starships emerged onto the lanes of Galaxy Four.

Unfortunately, most galactology records burned in the Great Fire. But other accounts tell of relentless hostility by mighty, enigmatic star-lords calling themselves Jophur, who took a leading role in the Sequestration of Mudaun. That fearsome atrocity led directly to the Tabernacle exodus—an outrage executed with single-minded precision and utter resoluteness. Traits not often observed in traeki here on the Slope.

It is also said that hoon were at Mudaun, portrayed in the accounts as dour, officious, unhappy beings. A race of stern accountants, dedicated to population control and tabulating the breeding rates of other races, unswayed by appeals to mercy or forbearance.

Could anyone recognise, in these descriptions, the two most easy-going members of the Six?

No wonder hoon and traeki seem the least prone to nostalgia about good old days, back when they new about as gods of space.

Annals of the Jijoan Commons

 

 

Sara

WITH DAWN BLEACHING THE EASTERN SKY, weary travelers trudged into Uryutta’s Oasis after a long night march across the parched Warril Plain—a teeming, thirsty crowd of donkeys and simlas, humans and hoon. Even urrish pilgrims stepped daintily to the muddy shore and dipped their narrow heads, wincing at the bitter, unmasked taste of plain water.

Full summer had broken over the high steppe, when hot winds ignited rings of circle grass, sending herds stampeding amid clouds of dust. Even before the present crisis, wayfarers avoided the summer sun, preferring the cool moonlight for travel. Urrish guides bragged they would know the plain blindfolded.

That’s fine for them, Sara thought, swishing her aching feet in the oasis spring. An urs doesn’t fall on her face when a chance stone turns underfoot. Me, I like to see where I’m going.

Predawn light revealed mighty outlines to the east. The Rimmers, Sara thought. The mixed-race expedition was making good time, hurrying to reach the Glade before events there reached a climax. On the plus side, she was anxious to see her brothers, and to learn how well Bloor was implementing her idea. There might also be medical help for her ward, the Stranger, if it seemed safe to reveal him to the aliens. A big if. Nor had she quite given up on getting to see one of the fabled library consoles of the Great Galactics.

Yet there was also much to fear. If the star-gods did plan on wiping out all witnesses, it would surely start at the Glade. Above all, Sara worried that she might be taking the Stranger into the hands of his enemies. The dark, ever-cheerful man seemed eager to go, but did he really understand what was involved?

A whistling sigh fluted from Pzora’s corrugated cone, as the traeki siphoned water from the pond, fatigued despite having ridden all the way in a donkey-drawn chariot. A new rewq draped across Pzora’s sensor ring, one of two Sara had bought from the fresh supply at Kandu Landing, to help the traeki pharmacist treat the wounded alien, even though she wasn’t keen on the symbionts herself.

A chain of bubbles broke the surface near Sara’s foot. By Loocen’s silver light, she made out Blade, from Dolo Village, resting underwater. The hasty trek had been hard on red qheuens, and blues like Blade, as well as those humans too big to burden a donkey. Sara had been allowed to mount every even-numbered midura. Even so, her body ached. Serves me right for leading a bookish, cloistered life, she thought.

A raucous cheer rose up where urrish donkey-drivers piled grass and dung to make a campfire. Simla blood was drained into a tureen, followed by chopped meat, and soon they were slurping tepid sanguinary stew, lifting their long necks to swallow, then bending for more—sinuous silhouettes whose rise and fall was eerily accompanied by the Stranger’s plinking dulcimer. Meanwhile a hoon cook, proud of her multirace cuisine, banged pots and sprinkled powders until spicy aromas finally overcame the stench of roast simla, restoring even Sara’s queasy appetite.

A little while later, full dawn revealed stunning tan-and-green mountains towering across the eastern horizon. The Stranger laughed as he worked shirtless, helping Sara and the other humans do a typical camp-chore assigned to Earthlings—erecting shelters of g’Kek blur cloth, to shade travelers and beasts through the blazing day. The star-man’s muteness seemed no handicap at working with others. His pleasure at being alive affected all those around him, as he taught the others a wordless song to help pass the time.

Two more days, Sara thought, glancing up toward the pass. We’re almost there.

The oasis was named for a nomad warrior who had lived soon after urrish settlement on Jijo, when their numbers were still small, and their planet-bound crafts pitifully crude. In those olden times, Uryutta fled east from the rich grazing lands of Znunir, where her tribal chiefs had vowed fealty to mighty Gray Queens. Uryutta led her fellow rebels to this wadi in the vast dry plain, to nurse their wounds and plot a struggle for freedom from qheuen dominance.

Or so went the legend Sara heard that afternoon, after sleeping through the hottest part of the day—a slumber during which she had dreamed vaguely of water, cool and clear, raising a terrible thirst. She slaked it at the spring, then rejoined the other travelers under the big tent for another meal.

With a few hours still to go before dusk, and a leaden heat still pressing outside, tinkers and pack-handlers gathered around a storyteller, accompanying her recital with foot-stamps and switched braided tails. Even after gaining books and printing, urs still loved the oral tradition, its extravagance and impromptu variations. When the bard’s chant reached the Battle of Znunir Trading Post, elongated heads swayed together. Triplet eyes stared past the poet toward times gone by.

So the traitor cavalry scattered

Willing slaves, the cowards were driven

Into the trap Uryutta had fashioned

Tumbling screaming through Deep Stink Crevasse

There to mix sulfurous death smells

With their own dry-pouch, death-fearing rankness.

Listeners hissed contempt for gutless renegades. Sara pulled out her notebook and took notes on the antiquated storytelling dialect, already devolved from GalTwo, long before humans came.

Then wheeled Uryutta, ready to confront

The dread footmen of gray qheuen matrons

Males in armor, males with weapons

Of sharp-edged hardwood, flashing so brightly

And clattering claws, keen to tear hide,

Poised now to flay us in shreds for their mothers.

This time the urs listeners vented repeated low grunts, marking respect for a tough foe, a sound humans first heard the third generation after arriving, when Earthlings won their own place in the pre-Commons chaos.

Now is the time! Our chief gives the signal.

Bring forth the weapons, tools newly fashioned.

Bring forth the longsticks, come forth you strongbacks.

Stab now to miss, but stab hard below!

Bear now the burden. Bear it, you strongbacks!

Heave! Claws a-flashing, over they go!

At first Sara had trouble following the action. Then she understood Uryutta’s combat innovation—using “long-sticks,” or rods of boo, to tip over the invincible qheuen infantry. Urrish volunteers served as living fulcrums, braving snapping” claws and crushing weight while their fellows heaved, toppling one qheuen after another.

Despite the ecstatic song of vengeful slaughter, Sara knew the historical Uryutta’s victories had been shortlived, as qheuens adjusted their tactics. It took a later breed of heroes—the warrior smiths of Blaze Mountain—to finally drive gray tyrants off the high plains. And still the queens thwarted the rising Commons, until humans brought new-old skills to the art of war.

Not all the urs were celebrating past glories. The caravan chief and her aides knelt on a peko-skin rug, planning the next trek. From their gestures over a map, they clearly meant to skip the next oasis and make a hard dash for the foothills by sunrise.

Oh, my aching feet, Sara thought.

The chief raised her conical head, hissing as one human pilgrim neared a tent flap.

“Got to go,” explained Jop, the Dolo tree farmer.

“What, leaking again? Are you ill?”

Jop had spent most of the journey immersed in a copy of the Scroll of Exile, but now he seemed affable. He laughed. “Oh, no. I jest drank too much lovely spring water. Time to give it back to Jijo. That’s all.”

While the flap was briefly up, Sara glimpsed bubbles in the pond again. Blade was back under, soaking for the next hard march. Was he also blocking out the storyteller’s victory paean over defeated qheuens?

The flap fell, and Sara looked around the pavilion-shelter.

Kurt the Exploser used a compass to draw loopy arcs on sheets of graph paper, growling over his labors, making a papermaker’s daughter wince as he crumpled one sheet after another in frustration. Nearer to Sara, Prity also drew abstract figures, more economically, in a patch of sand. Pulling at her furry chin, she consulted a topology text Sara had brought from Biblos.

My, what an intellectual caravan, Sara observed sardonically. A would-be priest, a designer of things that go bang, a geometrical chimpanzee, and a fallen mathematician, all hurrying toward possible destruction. And that just begins our list of oddities.

Over to the left, the Stranger had set aside his dulcimer to watch Kurt’s nephew, young Jomah, play a game of Tower of Haiphong with a red-qheuen salt peddler, a pair of Biblos librarians, and three hoonish pilgrims. The contest involved moving colored rings over a hexagonal array of posts, stuck in the sand. The goal was to pile a stack of rings on your Home Post in the right order, largest at the bottom, smallest on top. In the advanced game, where ring colors and patterns signified traeki attributes, one must wed various traits to form an ideal traeki.

Pzora seemed more entranced by the storyteller than the game. Sara had never heard of a traeki taking offense at Tower of Haiphong, even though it mimicked their unique mode of reproduction.

“See here?” the boy explained the game to the Stranger. “So far I got swamp flippers, a mulching core, two memory rings, a Sniffer, a Thinker, and a Looker.”

The star-human showed no sign of frustration by Jomah’s rapid speech. He watched the apprentice ex-ploser with an expression of intelligent interest—perhaps he heard Jomah’s warbling voice as something like musical notes.

“I’m hoping for a better base, to let my traeki move around on land. But Horm-tuwoa snatched a walker torus I had my eye on, so it looks like I’m stuck with flippers.”

The hoon to the boy’s left crooned a low umble of gratification. You had to think fast, playing Tower of Haiphong.

“Build me a dream house, oh my dear,

fourteen stories high.

Basement, kitchen, bedroom, bath,

I’ll love you till I die.”

 

Jomah and the others all stopped what they were doing to stare at the Stranger, who rocked back and laughed.

He’s getting better at this, Sara thought. Still, it seemed eerie whenever the star-man came up with the verse to some song, perfectly apropos to what was going on at the time.

With a glitter in his eye, the Stranger waited till the other players were engrossed once more in their own stacks. Then he nudged Jomah, covertly pointing out a game piece ready to draw from the reserve box. The boy stared at the rare torus called Runner, trying so hard to stifle a yelp of joy that he coughed, while the dark alien patted him on the back.

Now how did he know that? Do they play Tower of Haiphong, among the stars? She had pictured space-gods doing—well, godlike things. It was encouraging to

think they might use games with simple pieces—hard, durable symbols of life.

Of course, most games are based on there being winners . . . and losers.

The audience hissed appreciatively as the bard finished her epic and left the low platform to accept her reward, a steaming cup of blood. Too bad I missed the end, Sara thought. But she would likely hear it again, if the world lasted beyond this year.

When no one else seemed about to take the stage, several urs stretched and started drifting toward the nearest tent flap, to go outside and check their animals, preparing for tonight’s trek. But they stopped when a fresh volunteer abruptly leaped up, clattering hooves on the dais. The new storyteller was Ulgor, the tinker who had accompanied Sara ever since the night the aliens passed above Dolo Village. Listeners regathered around as Ulgor commenced reciting her tale in a dialect even older than the one before.

Ships fill your thoughts  right now,

Fierce, roaming           silently.

Ships fill your dreams    right now,

Far from all        watery seas.

 

Ships cloud your    mind-scape now,

Numberless          hordes of them.

Ships dwarf your    mind-scape now,

Than mountains,     vaster far.

 

A mutter of consternation. The caravan chief corkscrewed her long neck. This was a rare topic, widely thought in poor taste, among mixed-races. Several hoon-ish pilgrims turned to watch.

Ships of the        Urrish-ka

Clan of strong reverence.

Ships of the        Urrish host.

Clan bound for vengeance!

 

Bad taste or no, a tale under way was sacrosanct till complete. The commander flared her nostril to show she had no part in this breach, while Ulgor went on evoking an era long before urs colonists ever set hoof on Jijo. To a time of space armadas, when god-fleets fought over incomprehensible doctrines, using weapons of unthinkable power.

Stars fill your thoughts  right now.

Ships large as      mountain peaks,

Setting stars       quivering,

With planet-sized         lightings.

 

Sara wondered—why is she doing this? Ulgor had always been tactful, for a young urs. Now she seemed out to provoke a reaction.

Hoon sauntered closer, air sacs puffing, still more curious than angry. It wasn’t yet clear that Ulgor meant to dredge up archaic vendettas—grudges so old they made later, Jijo-based quarrels with qheuens and men seem like tiffs over this morning’s breakfast.

On Jijo, urs and boon share no habitats and few desires. No basis for conflict. It’s hard to picture their ancestors slaughtering each other in space.

Even the Tower of Haiphong game was abandoned. The Stranger watched Ulgor’s undulating neck movements, keeping tempo with his right hand.

Oh ye, native       listeners

So-smugly                 ignorant,

Planet-bound minds, dare you

Try to              conceive?

 

Of planet-like      holes in space,

In which dwell      entities,

That planet-bound         minds like yours

Cannot              perceive?

 

Several hoon umbled relief.  Perhaps this wasn’t about archaic struggles between their forebears and the urs. Some space-epics told of awesome vistas, or sights baffling to modern listeners, reminders of what the Six had lost, but might regain someday—ironically, by forgetting.

Cast back your      dread-filled thoughts,

To those ships,           frigidly,

Cruising toward           glory’s gate,

Knowing not         destiny.

 

If the first bard had been ardent, chanting bloody glory, Ulgor was coolly charismatic, entrancing listeners with her bobbing head and singsong whistle, evoking pure essences of color, frost, and fear. Sara put her notebook down, spellbound by vistas of glare and shadow, by vast reaches of spacetime, and shining vessels more numerous than stars. No doubt the yarn had grown in retelling, countless times. Even so, it filled Sara’s heart with sudden jealousy.

We humans never climbed so high before our fall. Even at our greatest, we never possessed fleets of mighty starships. We were wolflings. Crude by comparison.

But that thought slipped away as Ulgor spun her rhythmic chant, drawing out glimpses of infinity. A portrait took shape, of a great armada bound for glorious war, which fate lured near a dark region of space. A niche, mysterious and deadly, like the bitter hollows of a mule-spider’s lair. A place wise travelers skirted, but not the admiral of this fleet. Steeped in her own invincibility, she plotted a course to fall on her foes, dismissing all thought of detour.

Now from one        black kernel,

Spirals out               fortune’s bane,

Casting its               trap across,

Throngs of                uneasy stars . . .

 

Several hoon umbled relief. Perhaps this wasn’t about archaic struggles between their forebears and the urs.

With a sudden jerk, Sara’s attention was yanked back to the present by a hard tug on her right arm. She blinked.

Prity gripped her elbow, tight enough to grow painful—until Sara asked—“What is it?”

Letting go, her chim consort signed.

Listen. Now!

Sara was about to complain—That’s what I was doing, listening—then realized Prity did not mean the story. So she tried to sift past Ulgor’s mesmerizing drone . . . and finally picked up a low mutter coming from outside the pavilion.

The animals. Something’s upsetting them.

The simlas and donkeys had their own camouflaged shelter, a short distance away. Judging from a slowly rising murmur, the beasts weren’t exactly frightened, but they weren’t happy, either.

The Stranger also noticed, along with a couple of librarians and a red qheuen, all of them backing away, looking around nervously.

By now the caravan chief had joined the crowd of rising-falling urrish heads, lost in a distant place and time. Sara moved forward to nudge the expedition leader—carefully, since startled urs were known to snap—but all at once the chiefs neck went rigid of its own accord, anxious tremors rippling her tawny mane. With a hiss, the urs matron roused two assistants, yanking a third back to reality with a sharp nip to the flank. All four stood and began trotting toward the tent flap—

then skittered to a halt as phantom shapes began rising along the shelter’s western edge—shadowy centauroid outlines, creeping stealthily, bearing spiky tools. A dismayed screech escaped one of the caravan-lieutenants, just before chaos exploded on all sides.

The audience burst into confusion. Grunts and whistling cries spilled from stunned pilgrims as the tent was ripped in a dozen places by flashing blades. War-painted fighters stepped through the gaps, leveling swords, pikes, and arbalests, all tipped with bronze-colored Buyur metal, driving the churned mass of frightened travelers back toward the ash pit at the center.

Prity’s arms clasped Sara’s waist while young Jomah

clung to her other side. She wrapped an arm around the boy, for whatever comfort it might offer.

Urrish militia? she wondered. These warriors looked nothing like the dun-colored cavalry that performed showy maneuvers for Landing Day festivals. Slashes of sooty color streaked their flanks and withers. Their weaving, nodding heads conveyed crazed resolve.

A caravan-lieutenant bolted toward the stand where weapons were kept, mostly to ward off liggers, khoo-bras, or the occasional small band of thieves. The trail boss shouted in vain as the young urs dove for a loaded arbalest—and kept going, toppling through the stand and skidding along a trail of sizzling blood. She tumbled to a stop, riddled with darts, at the feet of a painted raider.

The expedition leader cursed the intruders, deriding their courage, their ancestry, and especially her own complacency. Despite rumors about trouble in far corners of the plains, peacetime habits were hard to break, especially along the main trail. Now her brave young colleague had paid the price.

“What do you want?” she, demanded in GalTwo. “Do you have a leader? Show her (criminal) muzzle, if she dares to speak!”

The tent flap nearest the oasis lifted, and a burly urrish warrior entered, painted in jagged patterns that made it hard to grasp her outline. The raider chieftain high-stepped delicately over the lieutenant’s bloody trail, cantering to a halt just before the caravan commander. Surprisingly, both of her brood-pouches were full, one with a husband whose slim head peered under the fighter’s arm. The other pouch was blue and milk-veined, bulging with unfledged offspring.

A full matron was not usually prone to violence, unless driven by duty or need.

“You are not one to judge our (praiseworthy) daring, “ the raider captain hissed in an old-fashioned, stilted dialect. “You, who serve (unworthy) client/masters with too-many or too-few legs, you are not fit to valuate this band of sisters. Your sole choice is to submit (obsequiously), according to the (much revered) Code of the Plains.”

The caravan chief stared with all three eyes. “Code? Surely you do not mean the (archaic, irrelevant) rituals that old-time (barbaric) tribes used, back when—“

“The code of war and faith among (noble, true-to-their-nature) tribes. Confirmed! The way of our (much revered) aunts, going back generations before (recent, despicable) corruption set in. Confirmed! Once again, I ask/demand—do you submit?”

Confused and alarmed, the caravan chief shook her head, human style, blowing air uncertainly like a hoon. With a low aspiration, she muttered in Anglic,

“Hr-r-r. Such jeekee nonsense for a grownuf adult to kill over—“

The raider sprang upon the merchant trader, wrapping their necks, shoving and twining forelegs till the caravan chief toppled with a groan of agony, wheezing in shock. Any Earthly vertebrate might have had her spine snapped.

The raider turned to the pilgrims with her head stretched far forward, as if to snap anyone in reach. Frightened prisoners pressed close together. Sara tightened her grip on Jomah, pushing the boy behind her.

“Again I ask/demand—who will (unreservedly) submit, in the name of this (miserable excuse for a) tribe?”

A dura passed. Then out of the circle staggered a surviving lieutenant—perhaps pushed from behind. Her neck coiled tightly, and her single nostril flared with dread as she stumbled toward the painted harlequin. Trembling, the young urs crouched and slowly pushed her head along the ground till it rested between the raider’s forehooves.

“Well done,” the corsair commented. “We shall make a (barely acceptable) plainsman of you.

“As for the rest, I am called UrKachu. In recent (foolish) days I was known as Lord High Aunt of Salty Hoof Clan, a useless, honorary title, bereft of (real) power or glory. Now banished from that (ungrateful) band, I co-lead this new company of cousin-comrades. United, we resurrect one of the (great, lamented) warrior societies—the Urunthai!”

The other raiders raised their weapons, bellowing a piercing cry.

Sara blinked surprise. Few humans grew up ignorant of that name, fearsome from bygone days.

“This we have done because (so-called) aunts and sages have betrayed our glory race, falling into a (reviled) human trap. A scheme of extermination, planned by alien criminals.”

From an abstract corner of her mind, Sara noted that the raider was losing control over her tailored, old-fashioned GalTwo phrasing, giving way to more modern tones, even allowing bits of hated Anglic to slip in.

The other raiders hissed supportive counterpoint to their leader’s singsong phrasings. UrKachu leveled her head toward the pilgrims, twisting and searching, then stopped before a tall, dark human male—the Stranger.

“Is this he? The star-demon?”

The spaceman smiled back, as if not even bloody murder could break his good humor. This, in turn, seemed to set the painted urs back momentarily.

Is this the (selected, sought-after) one?” UrKachu went on. “Sky-cousin to those two-legged devils we have lived among for (long-suffering) generations?”

As if trying to perceive a new form of life, the crippled star-alien flipped the veil of his new rewq over his eyes, then off again, comparing perspectives on the urrish marauder. Perhaps, with meaning robbed from words, he found some in the riot of emotion-laden colors.

A new voice spoke up, as smooth and coolly magnetic as the warrior chief was fiery-fierce, answering from behind the mass of huddled pilgrims.

“This is the one,” Ulgor assured, emerging from the tight-packed, sweaty crowd, stepping toward UrKachu. Like the Stranger, she showed no trace of fear.

“It is the (promised) prize, recovered from far-off Dolo Town. Recently confirmed by a human sage to be one of the star-demons, not Jijo born.”

While the pilgrims muttered dismay at Ulgor’s betrayal, UrKachu’s hooves clattered joy. “Those from space will pay (dearly) for his return. For this they may offer one thing valuable above all else—survival for some (though not all) urs on Jijo.”

Many things suddenly made sense. The motive for this raid, as well as Ulgor’s spellbinding performance on the storytelling platform, designed to keep the caravan crew inside while the Urunthai moved stealthily into position.

A slim shadow fell between the two urrish leaders. A new voice cut in, speaking Anglic.

“Don’t forget friends, we’ll be demandin’ a bit more’n just that.”

A human form stood in the torn entry. Moving away from the late-afternoon glare, it resolved as/op, the Dolo Village tree farmer. “There’s a whole list o’ things we’ll be needin’ if they’re to get their boy back, hale and whole”—Jop glanced at the Stranger’s scarred scalp—“or as whole as the poor veg will ever be.”

Sara realized. He went outside to signal the raiders while Vigor kept us distracted.

A strange alliance. A human purist helping urrish fanatics who named their group after the ancient Earthling-hating Urunthai Society.

A frail alliance, if Sara overheard rightly when UrKachu muttered sideways to Ulgor—

“Would things not prove simpler without this one?”

Tellingly, the painted warrior winced and shut up when Ulgor gave her leg a sharp kick, out of view of the other urs.

Sara detached Jomah and Prity, sheltering them in the crowd before taking a step forward.

“You can’t do this,” she said.

Jop’s smile was grim. “And why not, little bookworm?”

It was a victory to keep a tremor out of her voice.

“Because he may not be one of the gene-thieves at all! I have reason to believe he may actually be an enemy of theirs.”

Ulgor looked the Stranger up and down, nodding. “A fossivility that natters not at all. What counts is—we have goods to sell and can set a frice.”

That price Sara could envision. For UrKachu, a return to glory days of wild warriors roaming free—not incompatible with Jop’s goal to have all the dams, machines, and books cast down, speeding humanity along the Path of Redemption.

Neither seemed to fear the chance of renewed war, so clear was the contempt each held for the other. At the moment, it hardly mattered.

We are in the hands of maniacs, Sara thought. Fools who will ruin us all.

Asx

AND NOW RETURNS THE ROTHEN SHIP. BACK from its cryptic mission probing nearby space for some unknown god-purpose.

Back to collect the station it left behind, and its crew of biological prospectors.

Back to gather up a treasure-hold of purloined genes.

Back to cover up their crime.

Only now, that erstwhile-buried station gapes before us, a twisted ruin. One Rothen and a sky-human lie on makeshift biers, robbed of life, while the surviving visitor-invaders rage choleric, vowing retribution. If any doubted their intent before, my rings, can it be ambiguous anymore? We are bound to be punished. Only means and extent remain in doubt.

This is what the rebel zealots desired. No more confusion. An end to hints and sweet, lying promises. Only the cleanliness of righteous opposition, however uneven our powers against those we must resist. Let us be judged, the zealots demand, by our courage and faith, not our hesitation.

The hot, unwinking star moves across our pre-dawn sky, orbiting slowly closer, an angel-or demon-of vengeance. Do those aboard already know what has happened? Are they even now plotting the storm to come?

The zealots argue we must seize the survivors—Ro-kenn, Ling, and Rann—as hostages for the protection of every member of the Commons. And the remaining star-man, Kunn, when his aircraft returns to its shattered base.

Horrified, our qheuenish High Sage, Knife-Bright Insight, skewers the zealot logic.

“You would pile one crime on another? Did they harm us, these aliens? Did they strike the first blow, with their clinics and high-paying jobs? You have slain two of them based on mere speculation of ill intent! Now you would kidnap the rest? Let us imagine that those on the ship agree to your demands, promising not to attack the Six. What is to stop them changing their minds, once the hostages go free?”

The zealot chief replies—

“Who says they will go free? Let them dwell among us for the rest of their natural spans, living as deterrents to alien vileness.”

“And after that? How foolish to think in terms of mere lifespans! Star-gods ponder long thoughts. They plan long plans. To slay us now or in fifty years, what difference will that make, in the grand scheme of things?”

Some onlookers murmur agreement. To others, however, it is as if the sage has made a fine joke. They laugh in various ways and shout, “It makes a big difference to those now alive!”

“Anyway,” the urrish leader of the zealots adds—“You are wrong to say they had not yet attacked us, or attempted (villainous) harm. To the contrary, our (justified) explosive feat stopped their (vile) scheme just in time!”

Soot-stained and fatigued, Lester Cambel sits on a nearby boulder. Now he lifts his head from his hands, and asks—

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean their (foul) intent was to begin a program of

annihilation by igniting (fratricidal) war among the Six!”

The gathered onlookers absorb this silently.

Knife-Bright Insight demands—“Can you prove this?”

“Solid (irrefutable) evidence is on the way. But first, should you not hear (supportive) testimony from your own (highly revered) fellow sage?”

Confusion reigns, until Phwhoon-dau steps forward to speak. Our hoonish colleague has been strangely silent, taking little part in events, save to carry Vubben downhill from the ill-starred pilgrimage. Now his long, scaly spine unbends, as if glad to pass a heavy burden.

“It is too short a time that I have had to ruminate upon these matters,” he demurs.

“You would ruminate a geologic age, dear friend,” Lester Cambel jests in a gentle way. “Even your most tentative wisdom is greater than any other, except the Egg’s. Please share it with us.”

A deep, rolling sound emanates from Phwhoon-dau’s pendulous, vibrating sac.

“Hr-r-rm. . . . For almost two jaduras, I have kept careful records of statements made by our guests from space, especially those spoken formally, as if written by someone else for the sky-humans to say aloud. I had several linguistic reference works from Biblos, which I sometimes consult when judging disputes between individuals of different races, speaking different tongues. Despite our local dialect devolution, these works contain useful charts regarding syntax and variable meaning. I do not claim great expertise—just a backwoods practicality—in scrutinizing the aliens’ statements.”

“But you reached conclusions?”

“Hr-r. Not conclusions. Correlations perhaps. Indicating a possible pattern of intent.”

“Intent?”

“Intent . . . r-r-rm ... to incite divisiveness.”

Ur-Jah comments from the wallow where she curls in exhaustion from the futile rescue effort, scratching for survivors amid the smoky ruin of the aliens’ station.

“This is not the first tine such a susficion has veen raised. We all have anecdotes to tell, of innocent-sounding renarks which sting gently at first, like a shaedo-fly, laying eggs that fester a wound that never heals. Now you say there is a consistent fattern? That this was vart of a deliverate flan? Why did you not sfeak of this vefore?”

Phwhoon-dau sighs. “A good scholar does not publish provisional data. Also, the aliens seemed unaware that we have retained this skill, charting the meaning in phrases. Or rather, that we recovered it with the Great Printing. I saw no reason to leak the fact too soon.”

He shrugs like a traeki, with a left-right twist. “I finally became convinced when Ro-kenn spoke to us all, during the pilgrimage. Surely it occurred to some of you that his aim was to strike sparks of dissension •with his words?”

“It sure did!” Lester Cambel growls. Assent echoes loudly from many humans present, as if to convince others of their sincerity. Hoofed urs stamp uncertainly, their hot tempers clearly frayed from the long enervating night. Only hard-won habits of the recent Peace have kept things calm till now.

Phwhoon-dau continues. “The formal dialect of Galactic Six used by the Rothen star-god allows little room for ambiguity. Ro-kenn’s disconcerting words can have but two possible interpretations. Either he is tactless to a degree beyond all stupidity, or else the objective was to incite a campaign of genocide against human-sept.”

“Against their own veloved clients?” Ur-Jah asks, incredulous.

“That is irrelevant. Even if the Rothen claim of patronhood is true, why should they care about one small, isolated band of feral humans, long cut off from the race as a whole, genetically inbred and several hundred years out of date, perchance even defective, psychologically backward, polluted by—“

“You’ve made your point,” Lester interrupts testily. “But in that case, why pick on us?”

Phwhoon-dau turns to our human peer, umbling apologetically. “Because among the Six, man-sept is greatest in its technic lore, in its imperfect-but-useful recollection of Galactic ways, and in its well-remembered skill at the art of war.”

There rises a muttering from some qheuenish and urrish listeners, yet no actual disagreement. Not from anyone who knows the tale of Battle Canyon, or Townsend’s Ambush, or the siege of Tarek Town.

“All of these factors make your kind the obvious first target. Moreover, there is another reason. The effect your race has had upon the rest of us. As newcomers, when your rank was lowest, still you opened your sole treasure, your library, to all. After your great victories, when your status towered highest, you refused many privileges of dominance, instead bowing to the sages, accepting limits called for by the Great Peace.

“It is this record of restraint that makes you dangerous to Rothen plans. For what good is it to incite war, if your intended victims choose not to fight?”

Yes, my rings, we observe/note the crowd’s reaction. A hush as Phwhoon-dau evokes images of reconciliation, gently dousing still-simmering sparks of resentment. It is a masterwork of mediation.

“Once men-sept is gone,” Phwhoon-dau goes on, “it would prove simple to goad disaffection among the rest, pretending secret friendships, offering assistance. Handing over tailored plagues, for instance, letting each race come up with clever ways to deliver death bugs to their foes. Within less than a generation the job would be complete. The sparse record left in Jijo’s soil would show only that six sooner races once sank low here, never reaching redemption.”

Uneasy silence, greets this scenario painted by our hoonish sage.

“Of course, none of this is proven,” Phwhoon-dau concludes, rounding to stab a finger toward the zealot chieftain. “Nor does it justify the horrors we have seen this night, perpetrated rashly, without consulting the sages or the Commons.”

The urrish rebel lifts her head high, in order to peer over the crowd toward the east. With a glad snort, she turns back to Phwhoon-dau.

“Now arrives your proof!” She whistles jubilantly, helping shove an opening through the ranks of spectators, as dawn reveals dusty figures galloping down the trail from the Holy Glade.

“Here, also, is your justification.”

Lark

HARULLEN CALLED DOWN FROM THE CRATER’S edge. “You two had better come up now!” the heretic shouted. “Someone’s going to catch you and it’ll mean trouble. Besides-I think something’s happening!”

Physical and emotional exhaustion had taken their toll of the gray aristocrat’s polished accent. He sounded frantic, as if serving as reluctant lookout were as risky as poking through perilous wreckage.

“What’s happening?” Uthen shouted back. Though a cousin to the qheuen above, Lark’s fellow biologist looked like a different species, with his scarred carapace streaked by gummy ash. “Are they sending a robot this way?”

Harullen’s leg-vents fluted overtones of worry. “No, the machines still hover protectively over Ro-kenn, and the two servant-humans, and the cadavers, all surrounded by a crowd of local sycophants. I refer to a commotion over where the sages have been holding court. More zealots have arrived, it seems. There is ferment. I’m certain we are missing important news!”

Harullen may be right, Lark thought. Yet he was reluctant to leave. Despite the stench, heat, and jagged stubs of metal—all made more dangerous by his own fatigue—dawn was making it easier to prowl the ruins of the buried station in search of anything to help make sense of it all.

How many times had he seen Ling vanish down a ramp into these secret precincts, wondering what lay inside? Now it was a blackened hell.

I aided the zealots, he recalled. I gave them copies of my reports. I knew they were going to do something.

But I never figured anything as brutal as this.

Neither had the star-gods, who clearly never guessed that angry primitives might still know how to make things go boom.

They never asked the right questions.

“I tell you something’s happening!” Harullen shouted again, making no effort at originality. “The sages are in motion—toward the aliens!”

Lark glanced over at Uthen and sighed. “I guess he means it, this time.”

His friend had been silent for some time, standing over the same spot. When Uthen replied, it was in a low voice that barely disturbed the ash beneath his feet.

“Lark, would you please come look at this?”

Lark knew that tone from past field trips, exploring for evidence of Jijo’s complex living past. He picked his way toward the qheuen, slipping gingerly between torn metal braces and seared, buckled plating, lifting his feet to kick up as little of the nasty dust-ash as possible.

“What is it? Did you find something?”

“I-am not sure.” Uthen lapsed into GalSix. “It seems I have seen this before. This symbol. This representation. Perhaps you can confirm?”

Lark bent alongside his friend, peering into a recess where the rising sun had yet to shine. There he saw a jumble of rectangular lozenges, each thick as his hand and twice as long. Uthen had scraped aside some half-melted machinery in order to reveal the pile. One slab lay near enough to make out a symbol, etched across its dark brown surface.

A double spiral with a bar through it. Now where have I seen—

Lark’s hand reached where Uthen could not, stroked the rectangle, then picked it up. It felt incredibly light, though now it dawned on him that it could be the weightiest thing he had ever touched.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked, turning it in the light.

Uthen plucked the slab from his hand, holding it in a trembling claw.

“How can I not be?” the qheuenish scholar replied. “Even half-animal, reverted primitives should recognize the glyph of the Great Galactic Library.”

The “evidence” lay strewn across the trampled grass. Ro-kenn’s piercing eyes surveyed a tangle of wires and glossy spheroids that the zealots had recently brought down from the Valley of the Egg. Clogs of dirt still clung to a necklace of strange objects, from where it had till lately been buried, next to the holiest site on Jijo.

Two clusters of onlookers formed semicircles, one backing the assembled sages, the other reverently standing behind the star-god. Many in the second group had been patients at the forayers’ clinic or believed their claims of righteousness above all law. Among the humans on that side, faith in their rediscovered patrons seemed to glow, depicted by Lark’s new rewq as intense red fire, surrounding their faces.

Gone was the Rothen’s prior mien of furious wrath. Ro-kenn’s humanoid features once more conveyed charismatic poise, even serene indulgence. He spent another dura looking over the jumble of parts, then spoke in prim Galactic Seven.

“I see nothing here of interest. Why do you show me these things?”

Lark expected the young urrish radical—leader of the rebel zealots—to answer, as both plaintiff and defendant, justifying her group’s violence by diverting blame to the aliens. But the young dissenter kept well back, huddling with a crowd of humans and urs, consulting texts.

The hoonish sage, Phwhoon-dau, stepped forward to confront the Rothen emissary.

“We seek to ascertain whether these tools of high acumen are yours. Tools which some of our children found, within the last turning of Jijo’s axis. Tools which someone buried surreptitiously, in close contact with our beloved Egg.”

Lark watched Ling’s reaction. Since he already knew her pretty well, no rewq was needed to translate her shock of recognition. Nor the embarrassment that followed as she worked things out in her own head. That’s all I needed to know, Lark thought.

Ro-kenn seemed nonchalant. “I can only guess that some among you natives placed it there—as your foolish rebels placed explosives under our station.”

Now Ling’s reaction was to blink in surprise. She didn’t expect to hear him lie. At least not so baldly, with no time to prepare a smooth performance.

Glancing to one side, the star-woman noticed Lark’s scrutiny and quickly looked away. Lark wasn’t proud of the satisfaction he felt, over the reversal of their moral positions. Now it was her turn to feel ashamed.

“Use your instrumentalities,” Phwhoon-dau urged the tall Rothen. “Analyze these implements. You will find the technology far beyond anything we Six can now produce.”

Ro-kenn shrugged with an elegant roll of his shoulders. “Perhaps they were left by the Buyur.”

“In that place?” Phwhoon-dau boomed amusement, as if Ro-kenn had made a good-natured jest. “Only a century ago, that entire valley glowed white-hot from the Egg’s passage to the upper world. These tendrils would not have survived.”

The crowd murmured.

Lark felt a tug on his sleeve. He glanced around to see that a short blond figure—Bloor the Portraitist—had slinked up behind, bearing a box camera and tripod.

“Let me shoot under your arm!” the photographer whispered urgently.

Lark felt a frisson of panic. Was Bloor mad? Trying this in the open, with the robots at their wariest? Even if Lark’s body shielded that angle, people on both sides would see. Despite Phwhoon-dau’s masterful performance, could they count on loyalty from everyone in the milling throng?

With a helpless sigh, he lifted his left arm enough for Bloor to aim at the confrontation on the Glade.

“Then I have no other explanation for these items, “ Ro-kenn answered, referring to the snarled mass of gear. “You are welcome to speculate to the extent that you are able, until our ship arrives.”

Ignoring the implied threat, the hoonish sage went on with an air of calm reason that made the Rothen seem edgy by comparison.

“Is speculation required? It’s been asserted that several sets of eyes observed your robots, on a recent foggy night, deliberately implanting these devices underneath our sacred stone—“

“Impossible!” Ro-kenn burst forth, temper once more flaring. “No life-forms were in any position to witness on that night. Careful scans beforehand showed no sentient beings within range when—“

The Rothen emissary trailed off midsentence, while onlookers stared, awed and amazed that an urbane star-god could be suckered by so obvious a ploy.

He must be awfully accustomed to getting his way, Lark thought, to fall for such a simple trap.

Then a strange notion occurred to him. Many Earthly cultures, from ancient Greece and India to High-California, depicted their gods as spoiled, temperamental adolescents.

Could that be racial memory? Maybe these guys really are our long-lost patrons, after all.

“Thank you for the correction,” Phwhoon-dau answered, with a graceful bow. “I only said it was so asserted. I shall rebuke those who suggested it. We will take your word that there were no witnesses on the night that you now admit your robots planted these strange, alien devices next to our Egg. Shall we leave that aspect now and proceed to why they were planted in the first place?”

Ro-kenn appeared to be chewing on his mistake, working his jaw like a human grinding his teeth. Lark’s rewq showed a discolored swath that seemed to ripple across the upper part of the Rothen’s face. Meanwhile Bloor whispered contentment as he took another picture, pushing a cover slide over the exposed plate. Go away, Lark silently urged the little man, to no avail.

“I see no further purpose to be served by this session,” the alien finally announced. He turned and began to move away, only to stop when confronted by the gaping crater where his station once lay, recalling that he had no place to go.

Of course Ro-kenn could climb aboard a robot and simply fly off. But till either Kunn’s aircraft or the star-ship arrived, there was only wilderness to flee to. No shelter beyond this glade filled with inconvenient questions.

A shout rose up from the cluster of urs and men over to the left. The huddle broke, revealing a beaming Lester Cambel, burdened by several large-format volumes as he hurried forward. “I think we found it!” he announced, kneeling with several assistants beside one of the spheroidal knobs that ran along the tangled mass of cable. While an aide pried at the box, Lester explained.

“Naturally, none of us has the slightest idea how this device works, but Galactic tech is so refined and simplified, after a billion years, that most machines are supposed to be pretty easy to use. After all, if humans could pilot a creaky, fifth-hand starship all the way to Jijo, the things must be darn near idiot-proof!”

The self-deprecating jest drew laughter from both sides of the crowd. Pressing close to watch, the throng left no easy or dignified avenue for Ro-kenn or his servants to escape.

“In this case,” Cambel continued, “we assume the gadget was meant to go off when all the pilgrims were in place near the Egg, at our most impressionable, perhaps as we finished the invocation. A good guess would be either a timer or some remote control trigger, possibly a radio signal.”

An aide succeeded in getting the cover off, with an audible pop. “Now let’s see if we can find something like the standard manual override switch they show on page fifteen-twelve,” Lester said, crouching closer, consulting one of the open volumes.

Ro-kenn stared at the book, filled with crisp diagrams, as if he had just seen something deadly creep out of his own bedsheets. Lark noticed that Ling was looking at him once again. This time, her expression seemed to say, What have you been hiding from me?

Although she lacked a rewq, Lark figured a wry smile would convey his reply.

You assume too much, my dear. It blinded you, preventing you from asking sound questions. It also made you patronizing, when we might have been friends.

All right, maybe that was too complex to transmit by facial expression alone. Perhaps what his smirk actually said was-Such nerve! You accuse me of hiding things?

“I protest!” interjected the male sky-human, Rann, towering over all but the hoon and a few traeki as he stepped forward. “You have no right to meddle with the property of others!”

Phwhoon-dau crooned softly, “Hr-r-then you avow ownership of this invasive thing, placed without permission in our most sacred site?”

Rann blinked. Clearly he hated the present weakness of the aliens’ position, having to fence words with savages. Confused, the tall sky-human turned to Ro-kenn for guidance. While they conferred, heads close together, Lester Cambel continued.

“The purpose of this contraption was what had us stymied for a while. Fortunately, I’d already been doing some research on Galactic technologies, so the texts were somewhat familiar. Finally, I found it listed under psi emitters!”

“Here’s the switch, sir,” an aide declared. “Ready when you are.”

Lester Cambel stood up, raising both hands.

“People! This is a first and final warning. We’ve no idea what we’re about to set off. I assume nothing fatal, since our guests aren’t flying out of here at top speed.

However, since we’ve no time for careful experiments, I advise you to at least step back. The cautious among you may retreat some greater distance, perhaps twice the diameter of the Egg. I’ll count down from ten.”

Uthen wanted to stay and watch, Lark thought. But I made him go hide those library disk-things we found.

Did I actually do him a favor?

Cambel drew a deep breath.

“Ten!”

“Nine!”

“Eight!”

Lark had never seen a g’Kek outrace an urs before. But as the crowd dissolved, some of the Six showed surprising haste to depart. Others remained, tethered by curiosity.

Courage is one trait that binds any true union, he thought with some pride.

“Seven!”

“Six!”

Now Ro-kenn himself glided forward. “I avow ownership of this device, which-“

“Five!”

“Four!”

Ro-kenn hurried, speaking louder to be heard past the tumult. “-which consists merely of instrumentation, innocently emplaced- “

“Three!”

“Two!”

Faster, in frantic tones.  “—to study patterns cast by your revered and sacred- “ ‘    “One!”

“Now!”

Some humans instinctively brought their hands up to their ears, crouching and squinting as if to protect their eyes against an expected flash. Urs pressed arms over pouches. g’Keks drew in their eyes, while qheuens and traeki squat-hugged the ground. Rewq cringed, fleeing the intense emotions pouring from their hosts. Whatever a “psi emitter” might be, everyone was about to find out.

Lark tried to ignore instinct, taking his cue instead from Ling. Her response to the countdown seemed a queer mix of anger and curiosity. She clasped both hands together, turning to meet his eyes at the very moment Cambel’s aide stroked a hidden switch.

Asx

CONFUSION BRIMS OUR CENTRAL CORE, OOZING through the joint-seals that bind us/we/i/me, seeping bewilderment down our outer curves, like sap from a wounded tree.

This voice, this rhythmic recitation, can it be what we know it not to be?

The Egg’s patternings have stroked us so many ways. This ruction has familiar elements, like the Sacred One’s way of singing. . . .

Yet-there is also a metallic tang, simplistic, lacking the Egg’s sonorous pitch and timbre.

One sub-cadence draws us toward it, clattering like a hasty quintet of claws, pulling our attention, as if down a dark underground funnel.

Suddenly, i/we coalesce, submerging into strange existence as a unified being. One encased in a hard shell.

Pentagonal resentment surges. This “me” is filled with rage.

How dare they tell me I am free!

What unnatural law is this Code of the Commons? This rule that “liberates” my kind from the sweet discipline we once knew, imposed by our gracious queens?

We who are blue-we who are red-surely we yearn to serve, deep in our throbbing bile nodes! To work and fight selflessly, assisting gray dynastic ambitions! Was that not our way among the stars, and before?

The native way of all qheuens?

Who dared bring an end to those fine days, forcing alien notions of liberty into carapaces too stiff for a deadly drug called freedom?

Humans dared impose these thoughts, breaking up the union of our well-ordered hives! Theirs is the fault, the shell-bound debt to pay.

And pay they shall!

After that, there will be other scores to settle . . .

i/we writhe, experiencing what it feels like to crouch and run on five strong legs. Legs meant for service. Not to a mere nest, crouched behind some puny dam, or to some vast abstraction like the Commons, but to grand gray matrons, noble, gorgeous, and strong.

Why does this vivid perception flood through our dazzled core?

It must be the Rothen artifice-their psi-device-part of their scheme to influence each race of the Six. Tricking us into doing their will.

Quivers of surprise shake our/my rings. Even after so many years of friendship, i/we had never realized-the qheuen point of view is so weird\

Yet no weirder than the next sensation that comes barging into our shared consciousness.

The feel of galloping hooves.

A hot breath of the dry steppes.

The burning flare of a psyche at least as egocentric as any human being.

Now I am urrish-ka! Solitary, proud as the day I emerged from the grass, little more than a beast. Nervous, but self-reliant.

I may join the tribe or clan that adopts me off the plain.

I may obey a leader-for life has hierarchies that one must endure.

Yet inside I serve one mistress. Me!

Can humans ever know how their gross smell scrapes my nostril membranes? They make good warriors and smiths, it’s true. They brought fine music to Jijo. These are valid things.

Yet one conceives how much better the world would be without them.

We had fought our way up high before they came. From the plains to fiery mountaintops, we stretched our necks over all others on Jijo—till these bipeds dragged us down, to be just another race among Six.

Worse, their lore reminds us--(me!)--how much we have lost. How much is forgotten.

Each day they make me recall how low and brief my life is doomed to be, here on this spinning ball of mud, with bitter oceans all around . . .

The indignant narration gallops past our ability to follow. Its resentful thread is lost, but another takes its place, imposed from the outside by a force that throbs through the little mountain vale.

This beat is much easier to follow. A cadence that is heavy, slow to anger-and yet, once roused, its ire seems hopeless to arrest short of death.

It is not a rhythm to be rushed. Still, it beckons us . . . Beckons us to ponder how often the quicker races tease we poor, patient hoon,

how they swirl around us,

how often they seem to talk fast on purpose,

how they set us to the most dangerous tasks,

to face the sea alone, although each lost ship wrenches a hundred loved ones, tearing our small families apart with wrenching pain.

Humans and their stinking steamboats, they have kept the skills, pretending to share, but not really. Someday they will leave us rotting here, while they go off on ships made of pure white light.

Should this be allowed? Are there ways they can be made to pay?

Confusion reigns.

If these pernicious messages were meant for each separate race-to sway it toward aggression-then why are we/i receiving all of them? Should the Rothen not have targeted each sept to hear one theme, alone?

Perhaps their machine is damaged, or weak.

Perhaps we are stronger than they thought.

Breaking free of the hoonish rhythm, we sense that two layers of bitter song remain. One is clearly meant for Earthlings. Reverence is its theme. Reverence and pride.

We are superior. Others specialize but we can do anything! Chosen and raised by mighty Rothen, it is proper that we be greatest, even as castaways on this slope of savages.

If taught their place, the others might learn roles of worthy service . . .

we/i recall a phrase. Direct empathic transmission—a technique used by Galactic science for the better part of half a billion years.

Knowing makes the manipart stream of voice seem more artificial, tinny, even self-satirical. Of course this message was to have been amplified somehow through our Holy Egg, at a time when we would be most receptive. Even so, it is hard to imagine such prattle winning many believers.

Did they actually think we would fall for this?

Another fact penetrates our attention: There is no layer for the wheeled ones! Why is that? Why are the g’Kek left out? Is it because of their apparent uselessness in a program of genocidal war?

Or because they were already extinct, out there among the stars?

One resonance remains. A drumbeat, like hammers pounding on stacks of stiff round tubes. A reverberation that howls in a manner this composite self finds eerily familiar.

Yet, in some ways it is the most alien of all.

<MACRO-ENTITY PRIESTLY DECLARATION, DIRECT FROM ORATION PEAK OF KNOWING-iD IRATE HOSTILITY.

<RESPONSE = VOWED END TO PERSONAL INSULT! LET PERPETRATORS (EARTHLING) FACE ANNIHILATION . . . >

We shrivel back, dismayed. This egomania is far greater than any of the other broadcasts, even those aimed at urs and men! And yet—it is aimed at traek!

Do you see what is happening, my rings? Is this a taste of the proud willfulness that used to flow from coercive despot-toruses? Those tyrant psyches that once dominated our cognition rings? Overlord-collars that were abandoned on purpose by the traeki founders, when they fled to Jijo?

Is this is how resentment tasted to those haughty Jophur? (Yes, shudder at the name!)

Mighty beings who still prowl the stars, in our image. Ring cousins whose waxy cores are ruled by monomaniacal ravings.

If so, why do these rantings mean so little to our mani-colored segments? Knowing them for what they are, why do they seem so banal? So uncompelling?

The demonstration ends. All the scraping emissions fade as power runs out of the alien device. No matter. We now know the purpose of this tangle of cables and balls. To cast poison, amplified and lent credibility by passage through the Egg.

All around the meadow, anger seethes at this blasphemy, at this puerile appeal to our basest animosities. Passions that were obsolete even before the Egg appeared.

Is this how poorly you think of us, star-lords? That we might be fooled into doing your dirty work?

We perceive the crowd regathering, a muttering fuming throng, contemptuous of the bobbing hissing robots. Humans, urs, and others mix more freely now, sharing a heady kind of elation, as if we Six have passed an awful test. Passed it stronger and more unified than ever.

Is this the worst they can do to us?

That is a question i overhear several times.

Yes, my rings, it occurs to us that the Glade is but a small part of the Slope, and we present here make up only a fragment of the Commons.

Is this the worst they can do to us?

Alas, if only it were so.

 

Sara

THE URUNTHAI LIKED TO TRAVEL FAST AND LIGHT, not burdening their donkeys any more than necessary. The Urunthai also believed in the Path of Redemption-they did not much approve of books.

The librarians never had a chance.

Still, the trio of gray-robed archivists protested desperately when they saw the late afternoon bonfire. Two humans and their chimp assistant tore frantically at their bonds, pleading, entreating, trying to throw themselves across the wax-sealed crates they had been escorting to safety.

The ropes saved their lives. Watching with arbalests cocked, the painted Urunthai guards would not have flinched at shooting a clutch of pasty-skinned text-tenders.

“You like fire?” one warrior taunted in thickly accented Anglic. “Fire cleanses. It vurns away dross. It can do the sane thing with flesh. Hoo-nan flesh, vurns so nice.”

The librarians were reduced to silent weeping as flames licked the wax, then split the wooden chests, tumbling cascades of volumes that fluttered like dying birds. Paper pages flared as brief meteors, yielding whatever ink-scribed wisdom they had preserved for centuries.

Sara was glad Lark and Nelo couldn’t see this.

Many texts were copied, during the Great Printing or after. The loss may not be as had as it looks.

Yet how much longer would those duplicates endure this kind of age, filled with self-righteous sects and crusades, each convinced of their own lock on truth?

Even if the star-gods never wreck Biblos, or force the explosers to do it for them, fanatics like Jop and UrKachu will only grow more numerous and bold as the social fabric unravels.

As if to illustrate the point, a squadron of Jop’s comrades entered camp before sundown-a dozen hard-looking men equipped with bows and swords, who slaked their parched throats at the oasis without turning their backs on UrKachu’s clansmen, but glanced with satisfaction at the pyre of dying books.

The two groups have a common goal. An end to literary “vanities.” Replacing the current sages. Hewing closer to the dictates of the Scrolls.

Later, when we’re all firmly on the Path, we can return to slaughtering and ambushing each other, deciding who’s top predator on a sinking pyramid of redeemed animals.

The blaze collapsed, spewing sparks and curled paper scraps that seemed to swoop in whirling air currents. Standing next to Sara, the Stranger caught one in his hand and peered, as if trying to read what it once said. Perhaps he recognized something that was much like him, in a poignant way. Once eloquent, it had now lost the magic of speech.

The librarians weren’t alone watching with horrified, soot-streaked faces. A young mated pair of hoonish pilgrims clutched each other, umbling a funeral dirge, as if a loved one’s heart spine lay in the filthy coals. Several qheuens stared in apparent dismay, along with-lest we forget-a handful of sorrowful urrish traders.

The smoke-stench made her think of darkness. The kind that does not end with dawn.

“All right, everybody! Your attention, please. Here is the plan.”

It was Jop, breaking the somber silence, approaching as part of a foursome, with UrKachu, Ulgor, and a grim, sunburned man whose rugged face and flinty hardness made him seem almost a different species from the soft, bookish librarians. Even the Urunthai treated this human with grudging deference. Painted warriors stepped quickly out of his way. Sara found him familiar somehow.

“We’ll be leaving in two groups,” Jop went on. “The larger will proceed to Salty Hoof Marsh. If any militia platoons hear o’ this raid and care to give chase, that’s the first place they’ll look, so some of you may be ‘rescued’ in a week or so. That’s fine by us.

“The smaller group’s gonna go faster. Humans will ride, switchin’ to fresh donkeys every half midura. Don’t cause trouble or even think of sneakin’ off in the dark. The Urunthai are expert trackers, and you won’t get far. Any questions?”

When no one spoke, Jop shoved a finger at the Stranger. “You. Over there.” He gestured where the biggest, strongest-looking beasts were tethered single file, beside the oasis pond. The Stranger hesitated, glancing at Sara.

“It’s all right. She can go along. Can’t have our hostage goin’ sick on us, eh?” Jop turned to Sara. “I expect you’ll be willin’ to take care of him awhile longer.”

“If I can take my bags. And Prify, of course.”

The four leaders muttered among themselves. UrKachu hissed objections, but Ulgor sided with the humans, even if it meant sacrificing some of the booty robbed from the caravan merchants. Two donkeys had their trade goods dumped on the ground, to make room.

Another argument erupted when the Stranger straddled the animal he had been assigned, with his feet almost dragging on both sides. He refused to surrender the dulcimer, keeping the instrument clutched under one arm. With ill temper, UrKachu snorted disgust but gave in.

From her own perch on a sturdy donkey, Sara watched the hard-faced man gesture toward Kurt the Exploser, sitting with his nephew, silently watching events unfold.

“And you, Lord Exploser,” Jop told Kurt with a respectful bow, “I’m afraid there are questions my friends want to ask, and this is no place to persuade you to answer “em.”

Ignoring the implied threat, the gray-bearded man from Tarek Town carried his satchel over to the donkey train, with Jomah close behind. When a pair of Urunthai reached for the valise, Kurt spoke in a soft, gravelly voice.

“The contents are . . . delicate.”

They backed away. No one interfered as he chose a pack beast, dumped its load of plunder on the ground, and tied the valise in place.

Equal numbers of human radicals and Urunthai warriors made up the rest of the “fast group.” The men looked almost as ungainly on their donkeys as the tall Stranger, and more uncomfortable. For many, it must be their first experience riding.

“You aren’t coming?” Sara asked Jop.

“I’ve been away from my farm too long,” he answered. “Also, there’s unfinished business in Dolo. A certain dam needs tendin’ to, the sooner the better.”

Sara’s head jerked, but it wasn’t Jop’s statement of destructive intent that made her blink suddenly. Rather, she had glimpsed something over his shoulder: a stream of bubbles, rising to the surface of the pond.

Blade. He’s still underwater, listening to everything!

“Don’t worry, lass,” Jop assured, misconstruing her briefly dazed look. “I’ll make sure your dad gets out, before the cursed thing blows.”

Before Sara could reply, UrKachu cut in.

“Now it is (well past) time to end delays and perform actions! Let us be off!”

One of her tails switched the lead donkey’s rump, and the queue jostled forward.

Abruptly, Sara slid off her saddle and planted her feet, causing her mount to stutter in confusion, sending a ripple of jerks down the chain in both directions. One of the rough men tumbled to the ground, raising amused snorts from some Urunthai.

“No!” Sara said, with grim determination. “First I want to know where we are going.”

Jop urged in a low voice, “Miss Sara, please. I don’t even know myself—“

He cut off, glancing past her nervously as the flinty-eyed hunter approached.

“What seems to be the problem?” His deep voice seemed strangely cultured for his rough appearance. Sara met his steady gray eyes.

“I won’t mount till you tell me where we’re going.”

The hunter lifted an eyebrow. “We could tie you aboard.”

Sara laughed. “These little donkeys have enough trouble carrying a willing rider, let alone one who’s throwing her weight around, trying to trip the poor beast. And if you truss me like a bag o’ spuds, the bouncing will break my ribs.”

“Perhaps we’re willing to take that chance,” he began-then frowned as the Stranger, Kurt, and Prity slid off their beasts as well, crossing their arms.

The warrior sighed. “What difference can it possibly make to you, knowing in advance?”

The more he spoke, the more familiar he sounded. Sara felt sure she had met him before!

“My ward needs medical attention. So far, we’ve held off infection with special unguents provided by our traeki pharmacist. Since you don’t plan to bring ers chariot along with your ‘fast group,’ we had better ask Pzora for a supply to take with us.”

The man nodded. “That can be arranged.” He motioned for the Stranger to go join Pzora.

Unwrapping the rewq that had lately replaced his gauze bandages, the spaceman exposed the gaping wound in the side of his head. On seeing it, several desert-men hissed and made superstitious gestures against bad luck. While his symbiont joined Pzora’s rewq in a tangled ball, exchanging enzymes, the Stranger made a flutter of rapid hand motions to the traeki-Sara thought she caught a brief snatch of song—before he bowed to present his injury for cleaning and treatment.

She spoke again.

“Furthermore, any stock Pzora provides will stay good for just a few days, so you better figure on taking us someplace with another expert pharmacist, or you may have a useless hostage on your hands. The star-gods won’t pay much for a dead man, whether he’s their friend or foe.”

The renegade looked at her for a long, appraising moment, then turned to confer with UrKachu and Ulgor. When he returned, he wore a thin smile.

“It means a slight detour, but there is a town so equipped, not far from our destination. You were right to point this out. Next time, however, please consider simply voicing the problem, without starting out quite so confrontationally.”

Sara stared at him, then burst out with a guffaw. It seemed to cut some of the tension when he joined with a booming chuckle-one that took Sara back to her earliest days as a student, underneath the overhanging fist-of-stone.

“Dedinger,” she said, breathing the name without voice.

The smile was still thin, disdainfully bitter.

“I wondered if you’d recognize me. We labored in different departments, though I’ve followed your work since I was expelled from paradise.”

“A paradise you sought to destroy, as I recall.”

He shrugged. “I should have acted, without trying for consensus first. But collegial habits were hard to break., By the time I was ready, too many people knew my beliefs. I was watched night and day until the banishment.”

“Aw, too bad. Is this your way of getting another chance?” She motioned toward the bonfire.

“Indeed. After years in the wilderness, ministering to a flock of the fallen-humans who have progressed furthest along the Path-I’ve learned enough-“

UrKachu’s shrill whistle of impatience was not in any known language, yet its short-tempered insistence was plain. Again, Dedinger lifted an eyebrow.

“Shall we go, now?”

Sara weighed trying again to get him to name a destination, out loud. But Dedinger was insane, not stupid. Her insistence might rouse suspicions and maybe even give Blade away.

With an acquiescent shrug, she clambered back aboard the patient donkey. Watching with narrowed eyes, the Stranger remounted, too, followed by Kurt and Prity.

The remaining survivors of the ill-starred caravan seemed both pitying and relieved to be less important to the Urunthai. As the fast group rode out of the Oasis, heading south, the fading bonfire wafted bitter odors, along with dust and pungent animal smells.

Sara glanced back toward the moonlit pool.

Did you hear any of that, Blade? Were you asleep? Was it a garbled blur of uncertain noise?

Anyway, what good could a lone blue qheuen do, in the middle of a parched plain? His best bet was to stay by the pond till help came.

A mutter of beasts lifted behind Sara as the second party got under way, more slowly, following the same path.

Makes sense. The larger bunch will trample the trail of the smaller. At some point, UrKachu will veer us off, letting any pursuers keep following the main party.

Soon they were alone on the high steppe. Urunthai trotted alongside, agile and contemptuous of the awkward humans, who winced, dragging their toes as they rode. In reaction, the men began taking turns sliding off their mounts to run at a steady lope for several arrow-flights before swinging back aboard. This shut up the derisive urs and also seemed a good way to avoid saddle sores.

Alas, Sara knew she was in no physical condition to try it. If I live through this, I’m definitely getting into shape, she thought, not.for the first time.

The man with slate eyes ran next to Sara for a few duras, sparing her a wry, eloquent smile^He was so wiry and strong, it amazed Sara that she recognized him. The last time she had seen Savant Dedinger, he was a pale intellectual with a middle-aged paunch, an expert on the most ancient scrolls, and author of a text Sara carried in her own slim luggage. A man once honored with status and trust, till his orthodox fanaticism grew too extreme for even the broad-minded High Council.

These days, the sages preached a complex faith of divided loyalty, split evenly between Jijo, on the one hand, and the ancestors’ outlaw plan, on the other. It was a tense trade-off. Some solved it by choosing one allegiance over the other.

Sara’s brother gave his full devotion to the planet. Lark saw wisdom and justice in the billion-year-old Galactic ecological codes. To him, no fancied “path of redemption” could ever make up for flouting those rules.

Dedinger took the opposite extreme. He cared little about ecology or species preservation, only the racial deliverance promised by the Scrolls. Seeking pure innocence as a way to better days. Perhaps he also saw in this crisis a way to regain lost honors.

By moonlight, Sara watched the banished sage move with wiry grace-alert, focused, powerful-living testimony for the simpler style that he preached.

Deceptively simple, she thought. The world has countless ways of not being quite as it seems.

The Urunthai slowed after a while, then stopped to rest and eat. Those with pouched husbands or larvae needed warm Simla blood every midura or so, although the human raiders chafed and complained, preferring a steady pace over the urrish fashion of hurry-and-relax.

Soon after the second of these breaks, UrKachu veered the party onto a stony ledge that extended roughly southeast like the backbone of some fossilized behemoth. Rougher terrain slowed the pace, and Sara took advantage to dismount, giving respite to the donkey and her own bottom. Exercise might also take some chill stiffness out of her joints. She kept her right arm on the saddle though, in case some unseen stone made her stumble in the dark.

The going went a little easier with second moonrise. Backlit by silvery Torgen, the mountains seemed to loom larger than ever. North-side glaciers drank the satellite’s angled light, giving back a peculiar blue luminance.

The Stranger sang for a while, a sweet, soft melody that made Sara think of loneliness.

I am a bar’n island,

apart in the desult sea,

and the nearest skein of land

is my stark thought o’ thee.

 

O’ say I were a chondrite,

tumblin’ sool an’ free,

would you be my garner-boat?

An’ come to amass me?

 

It was Anglic, though of a dialect Sara had never heard, with many strange words. It was problematical how much the star-man still grasped. Still, the unrolling verses doubtless roused strong feelings in his mind.

Am I the ice that slakes your thirst,

that twinkles your bright rings?

You are the fantoom angel-kin,

whose kiss gives planets wings . . .

 

The recital ended when UrKachu trotted back, nostril flaring, to complain about unbearable Earthling caterwauling. A purely personal opinion, Sara felt, since none of the other urs seemed to mind. Music was on the short list of things the two races tended to agree about. Some urs even said that, for bringing the violus to Jijo, they could almost overlook human stench.

For an auntie, UrKachu seemed a particularly irritable sort.

The man from space fell silent, and the group traveled in a moody hush, punctuated by the clip-clop of the animals’ hooves on bare stone.

The next blood-stop took place on the wind-sheltered lee side of some towering slabs that might be natural rock forms but in the dimness seemed like ruins of an ancient fortress, toppled in a long-ago calamity. One of the weathered desert-men gave Sara a chunk of gritty bread, plus a slab of bushcow cheese that was stale, but tasty enough to one who found herself ravenously hungry. The water ration was disappointing, though. The urs saw little point in carrying much.

Around midnight, the party had to ford a wide, shallow stream that flowed through a desert wadi. Always prepared, Ulgor slipped on sealed booties, crossing with dry feet. The other urrish rebels slogged alongside the humans and animals, then dried each other’s legs with rags. After that, the Urunthai seemed eager to run for a while, till the moisture wicked out of their fibrous ankle fur.

When the pace slackened again, Sara slid off her mount to walk. Soon a low voice spoke from her right.

“I meant to tell you-I’ve read your paper on linguistic devolution from Indo-European.”

It was the scholar-turned-hunter, Dedinger, striding beyond her donkey’s other flank. She watched him for a long moment before answering.

“I’m surprised. At fifty pages, I could afford to get only five photocopies cranked, and I kept one.”

Dedinger smiled. “I still have friends in Biblos who send me engaging items, now and then. As for your thesis., while I enjoyed your ideas about grammatical reinforcement in pre-literate trading clans, I’m afraid I can’t bring myself to accept your general theory.”

Sara didn’t find it surprising. Her conclusions ran counter to everything the man believed in.

“That’s the way of science-a cycle of give-and-take. No dogmatic truth. No rigid, received word.”

“As opposed to my own slavish devotion to a few ancient scrolls that no human had a hand in writing?” The flinty man laughed. “I guess what it comes down to is which direction you think people are heading. Even among conservative Galactics, science is about slowly improving your models of the world. It’s future-oriented. Your children will know more than you do, so the truth you already have can never be called ‘perfect.’

“That’s fine when your destiny lies upward, Sara. But tradition and a firm creed are preferable if you’re embarked on the narrow, sacred road downhill, to salvation. In that case, argument and uncertainty will only confuse your flock.”

“Your flock doesn’t seem confused,” she acknowledged.

He smiled. “I’ve had some success winning these hard men over to true orthodoxy. They dwell much of each year on the Plain of Sharp Sand, trapping the wild spike-sloths that lurk in caves, under the dunes. Most don’t read or write, and their few tools are handmade, so they were already far down the Path. It may prove harder convincing some other groups.”

“Like the Explosers Guild?”

The former scholar nodded.

“An enigmatic clan. Their hesitation to do their duty, during this crisis, is disturbing.”

Sara raised her eyes toward Kurt and Jomah. While the senior exploser snored atop an ambling donkey, his nephew held another one-sided conversation with the Stranger, who smiled and nodded as Jomah chattered. The star-man made an ideal, uncritical audience for a shy boy, just beginning to express himself.

“Maybe they figure they can blow it all up just once,” Sara commented. “Then they’ll have to scratch for a living, like everyone else.”

Dedinger grunted. “If so, it’s time someone reminded them, respectfully, of their obligations.”

She recalled Jop’s talk of taking Kurt somewhere to be “persuaded.” In more violent times, the expression carried chilling implications.

We may be headed back to such times.

The flinty insurgent shook his head.

“But never mind all that. I really want to discuss your fascinating paper. Do you mind?”

When Sara shrugged, Dedinger continued in an amiable tone, as if they sat in a Biblos faculty lounge.

“You admit that proto-Indo-European, and many other human mother tongues, were more rigorous and rational than the dialects that evolved out of them. Right so far?”

“According to books carried here by the Tabernacle. All we have is inherited data.”

“And yet you don’t see this trend as an obvious sign of decay from perfection? From original grammars designed for our use by a patron race?”

She sighed. There might be weirder things in the universe than holding an abstract chat with her kidnapper under a desert sky, but none came to mind.

“The structure of those early tongues could have risen out of selective pressure, operating over generations. Primitive people need rigid grammars, because they lack writing or other means to correct error and linguistic drift.”

“Ah yes. Your analogy to the game of Telephone, in which the language with the highest level of shaman coding—“

“That’s Shannon coding. Claude Shannon showed that any message can carry within itself the means to correct errors that creep in during transit. In a spoken language, this redundancy often comes embedded in grammatical rules-the cases, declensions, modifiers, and such. It’s all quite basic information theory.”

“Ffm. Maybe for you. I confess that I failed to follow your mathematics.” Dedinger chuckled dryly. “But let’s assume you’re right about that. Does not such clever,

self-correcting structure prove those early human languages were shrewdly designed?”

“Not at all. The same argument was raised against biological evolution-and later against the notion of self-bootstrapped intelligence. Some folks have a hard time accepting that complexity can emerge out of Darwinian selection, but it does.”

“So you believe-“

“That the same thing happened to preliterate languages on Earth. Cultures with stronger grammars could hang together over greater distances and times. According to some of the old-timer linguists, Indo-European may have ranged all the way from Europe to Central Asia. Its rigid perfection maintained culture and trade links over distances far beyond what any person might traverse in a lifetime. News, gossip, or a good story could travel slowly, by word of mouth, all the way across a continent, arriving centuries later, barely changed.”

“Like in the game of Telephone.”

“That’s the general idea.”

Sara found herself leaning on the donkey as fatigue prickled her calves and thighs. Still, it seemed a toss-up-aching muscles if she stayed afoot versus shivering on a bruised coccyx if she remounted. For the little donkey’s sake, she chose to keep walking.

Dedinger had his teeth in the argument.

“If all you say is true, how can you deny those early grammars were superior to the shabby, disorganized dialects that followed?”

“What do you mean, ‘superior’? Whether you’re talking about proto-Indo-European, proto-Bantu or proto-Semitic, each language served the needs of a conservative, largely changeless culture of nomads and herders, for hundreds or thousands of years. But those needs shifted when our ancestors acquired agriculture, metals, and writing. Progress changed the very notion of what language was for.”

An expression of earnest confusion briefly softened the man’s etched features.

“Pray, what could language be for, if not to maintain a culture’s cohesion and foster communication?”

That was the question posed by members of Ded-inger’s former department, who spurned Sara’s theory at its first hearing, embarrassing her in front of Sages Bon-ner, Taine, and Purofsky. Had not the majestic civilization of the Five Galaxies been refining its twenty or so standard codes since the days of the fabled Progenitors, with a single goal-to promote clear exchange of meaning among myriad citizen races?

“There is another desirable thing,” Sara replied. “Another product of language, just as important, in the long run, as cohesion.”

“And that is?”

“Creativity. If I’m right, it calls for a different kind of grammar. A completely different way of looking at error.”

“One that welcomes error. Embraces it.” Dedinger nodded. “This part of your paper I had trouble following. You say Anglic is better because it lacks redundancy coding. Because errors and ambiguity creep into every phrase or paragraph. But how can chaos engender inventiveness?”

“By shattering preconceptions. By allowing illogical, preposterous, even obviously wrong statements to parse in reasonable-sounding expressions. Like the paradox- This sentence is a lie’-which can’t be spoken grammatically in any formal Galactic tongue. By putting manifest contradictions on an equal footing with the most time-honored and widely held assumptions, we are tantalized, confused. Our thoughts stumble out of step.”

“This is good?”

“It’s how creativity works, especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that’s afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original-some absurd concept that future generations will assume to have been ‘obvious’ all along.

“One result has been a profusion of new words-a vocabulary vastly greater than ancient languages. Words for new things, new ideas, new ways of comparing and reasoning.”

Dedinger muttered, “And new disasters. New misunderstandings.”

Sara nodded, conceding the point.

“It’s a dangerous process. Earth’s bloody past shows how imagination and belief turn into curses unless they’re accompanied by critical judgment. Writing, logic, and experimentation help replace some of the error-correction that used to come embedded in grammar. Above all, mature people must consider that most unpleasant of all possibilities-that their own favorite doctrines might prove wrong.”

She watched Dedinger. Would the man catch on that she had aimed that barb at him?

The exiled pedagogue gave Sara a wry smile.

“Has it occurred to you, Miss Sara, that your last statement could apply to you and your own beloved hypothesis?”

Now it was Sara’s turn to wince, then laugh aloud.

“Human nature. Each of us thinks we know what we’re talking about and those disagreeing are fools. Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora.”

Dedinger spoke with an ironic edge. “Sometimes the torch I carry scorches my fingers.”

Sara could not tell how much he meant the remark in jest. Often she found it easier to read the feelings of a boon, or g’Kek, than some members of her own enigmatic race. Still, she found herself enjoying the conversation, the first of its kind in quite some time.

“As for trends here on Jijo, just look at the new rhythmic novels being published by some of the northern urrish tribes. Or the recent burst of hoonish romantic poetry. Or the GalTwo haiku imagery coming out of the Vale—“

A sharp whistle cut her short-a guttural, stop-command piped by UrKachu’s upstretched throat. The queue of tired animals jostled to a halt, as the Urunthai leader pointed north of a stone spire, decreeing that a camouflaged shelter be raised in its long, tapered shadow.

In its shadow . . .

Blinking, Sara looked around to see that the night was over. Dawn-light filtered over the peaks, sifting through an early-morning haze. They had climbed among the mountains, or at least the rocky foothills, leaving behind the parched Warril Plain. Alas, they were by now far south of the well-worn trail leading to the Glade of Gathering.

Dedinger’s courtliness clashed with his rough appearance, as he excused himself to organize his men. “I’ve enjoyed matching wits,” he told her with a bow. “Perhaps we can resume later.”

“Perhaps.”

Although the discussion had been a pleasant diversion, she had no doubt the man would sacrifice her, along with all of her ideas, on the altar of his faith. Sara vowed to be ready for any occasion to sneak her friends away from these fanatics.

Right. An old man, a boy, a chimpanzee, a wounded alien, and an out-of-shape intellectual-even if we got a huge head start, these urs and desert-men would catch us faster than you can transform a sine wave.

Still, she gazed north toward high peaks where momentous events were taking place in hidden valleys, and thought—We’d better move fast, or else Ifni, God, and the universe will surely move on without us.

Asx

NOW COMES OUR TURN TO THREATEN. Proctors fight to hold back a furious throng, hemming our erstwhile guests inside a circle of rage. The remaining alien-lovers, mostly humans, form a protective ring around the star-beings, while the twin robots swoop and dive, enforcing a buffer zone with bolts of stinging lightning.

Lester Cambel steps forward, raising both hands for calm. The raucous noise ebbs, as members of the mob ease their pressure on the harried proctors. Soon silence reigns. No one wants to miss the next move in this game, wherein all of us on Jijo are tokens being gambled, to be won or lost, counting on our skill and luck.

Lester bows to the Rothen emissary. In one hand he bears a stack of metal plates.

“Now let’s drop all pretense,” he tells the star-god. “We know you for what you are. Nor can you trick us into genocidal suicide, doing your dirty work.

“Furthermore, should you try to do the job yourselves, annihilating all witnesses to your illegal visit, you will fail. All you’ll accomplish is to increase your list of crimes.

“We recommend that you be satisfied. Take what you will from this world, and go.”

The male star-human bursts forth, outraged. “How dare you speak so to a patron of your race!” Rann chastises, red-faced. “Apologize for your insolence!”

But Lester ignores Rann, whose status has diminished in the eyes of the Six. A toady/servant does not dictate to a sage, no matter what godlike powers he wields.

Instead, our human envoy offers one of the metal plates to Ro-kenn.

“We are not proud of this art form. It uses materials that won’t age or degrade back into Mother Jijo’s soil. Rather, it is adamant. Resistant to time. Properly stored, its images will last until this world again teems with legal sapient life.

“Normally, we would send such dross to where Jijo can recycle it in fire. But in this case, we’ll make an exception.”

The Rothen emissary turns the plate in the morning light. Unlike a paper photograph, this kind of image is best viewed from certain angles, we/i know what it depicts, do we not, my rings? The plate shows Ro-kenn and his comrades just before that ill-starred pilgrimage-a journey whose horrors still drip vexingly down our waxy core. Bloor the Portraitist developed the picture to serve as an instrument of blackmail.

“Other images depict your party in various poses, performing surveys, testing candidate species, often with backgrounds that clearly portray this place, this world. The shape of glaciers and eroding cliffs will set the date within a hundred years. Perhaps less.”

The rewq covering our/my torus-of-vision reveals ripples crisscrossing Ro-kenn’s face, again a dissonance of clashing emotions-but which ones? Are we getting better at reading this alien life-form? The second of our cognition rings seems deeply curious about the clashing colors.

The Rothen holds out an elegant hand.

“May I see the others?”

Lester hands them over. “This is but a sampling. Naturally, a detailed record of our encounter with your ship and crew has also been etched on durable metal, to accompany these pictures into hiding.”

“Naturally,” Ro-kenn answers smoothly, perusing one plate after another, turning them in the sunshine. “You have retained unusual arts, for self-accursed sooners. Indeed, I have never seen the like, even in civilized space.”

This flattery draws some murmurs from the crowd. Ro-kenn is once more being charming.

Lester continues, “Any acts of vengeance or genocide against the Six will also be chronicled this way. It is doubtful you can wipe us out before hidden scribes complete such a record.”

“Doubtful indeed.” Ro-kenn pauses, as if considering his options. Given his earlier arrogance, we had expected outrage over being blackmailed in this way, plus indignation over the implied disrespect. It would not surprise us to see open contempt for an effort by half-beasts to threaten a deity.

Instead, do we now perceive something like cautious calculation cross his features? Does he realize we have him cornered? Ro-kenn shrugs in a manner not unlike a human. “What shall be done, then? If we agree to your

demands, how can we be certain these will not reappear anyway, to plague our descendants someday? Will you sell these records to us now, in return for our promise to go in peace?”

Now it is Lester who laughs. Turning half toward the crowd, he gestures with one hand. “Had you come after the Commons experienced another century or two of peace, we might have trustingly accepted. But who among us has not heard stories told by old-timers who were there when Broken-Tooth deceived Ur-xouna near False Bridge, at the end of the old wars? What human has not read moving accounts of some great-grandfather who escaped the slaughter at Truce Gorge, during the Year of Lies?”

He turned back to Ro-kenn. “Our knowledge of deceit comes self-taught. Peace was hard-won-its lessons not forgotten.

“No, mighty Rothen. With apologies, we decline simply to take you at your word.”

This time a mere flick of one slender hand holds back the outraged Rann, checking another outburst. Ro-kenn himself seems amused, although the strange dissonance once more cuts his visage.

“Then what guarantee have we that you will destroy these items, and not leave them in a place where they may be found by future tenants of this world? Or worse, by Galactic Institutes, as little as a thousand years from now?”

Lester is prepared with an answer.

“There is irony here, Oh mighty Rothen. If we, as a people, remember you, then we are still witnesses who can testify against your crime. Thus, if we retain memory, you have reason to act against us.

“If, on the other hand, we successfully follow the path of redemption and forgetfulness, in a thousand years we may already be like glavers, innocuous to you. No longer credible to testify. If so, you will have no cause to harm us. To do so would be senseless, even risky.”

“True, but if you have by that time forgotten our visit, would you not also forget the hiding places where you cached these images?” Ro-kenn holds up a plate. “They will lie in ambush, like lurker missiles, patiently awaiting some future time to home in on our race.”

Lester nodded. “That is the irony. Perhaps it can be solved by making a vow of our own-to teach our descendants a song-a riddle, as it were-something simple, that will resonate even when our descendants have much simpler minds.”

“And what function will this puzzle serve?”

“We will tell our children that if ever beings come from the sky who know the riddle’s answer, they must retrieve these items from sacred sites, handing them over to the star-lords-your own successors, Oh mighty Rothen. Naturally, if we Six retain detailed memory of your crime, we sages will prevent the hand-over, for it will be too soon. But that memory will not be taught to children, nor passed on with the same care as we teach the riddle. For to remember your crime is to hold on to a poison, one that can kill.

“We would rather forget how and why you ever came. Only then will we be safe from your wrath.”

It is an ornately elaborate bargain that Lester offers. In council he had been forced to explain its logic three times. Now the crowd mutters, parsing the idea element by element, sharing bits of understanding until a murmur of admiration flows like molten clarity around the circle of close-pressed beings. Indeed, the bargain contains inherent elegance.

“How shall we know that all the items will be accounted for in this way?” Ro-kenn asks.

“To some extent, you must trust to luck. You were gamblers coming on this mission in the first place, were you not, mighty Rothen? I can tell you this. We have no grand desire to have these images arrive across the ages for Institute lawyers to pore over, looking for reasons to punish our own species-cousins, still roaming the stars. In their hardness and durability, these plates are an insult to our own goal on this world, to be shriven down to innocence. To earn a second chance.”

Ro-kenn ponders this.

“It seems we may have come to Jijo a few thousand years too soon. If you succeed in following your Path, this world will be a treasure trove.”

His meaning is not clear at first, then a mutter passes through the crowd, from urrish snorts to qheuenish hisses and finally booming hoonish laughter. Some are impressed by Ro-kenn’s wit, others by the implied compliment-that the Rothen would wish to adopt any presentient races that we Six might become. But that reaction is not universal. Some of those assembled seethe angrily, rejecting any notion of adoption by Ro-kenn’s folk.

Don’t we/i find this anger silly, my rings? Have client races any control over who becomes their patron? Not according to lore we’ve read.

But those books will be dust long before any of this comes to pass.

“Shall we swear oaths?” Ro-kenn asks. “This time based on the most pragmatic assurance of all-mutual deterrence?

“By this new arrangement, we shall depart in our ship, waiting only till our scout craft returns from its final mission, choking back whatever bitterness we feel over the foul murder of our comrades. In return, you all vow to forget our intrusion and our foolish effort to speak through the voice of your Holy Egg.”

“It is agreed,” replies Knife-Bright Insight, clicking two claws. “Tonight we’ll confer and choose a riddle whose secret key will be told to you. When next your kind comes to Jijo, may it be to find a world of innocents. That key will guide you to the hiding place. You may then remove the dross images. Our deal will be done.”

Hope washes over the crowd, striking our rewq as a wave of soft green tremors.

Can we credit the possibility, my rings? That the Six might live to see a happy ending? To the zealots this seems all that they desired. Their young leader dances jubilation. Now there will be no punishment for their violent acts. Rather, they will be known as heroes of the Commons.

What do you say, my ring?

Our second cognition-torus reminds us that some heretics might prefer that angry fire and plagues rid Jijo of this infestation called the Six. And yes, there is yet another, even smaller heretical fringe. Eccentrics who foresee our destiny lying in a different direction-scarcely hinted by sacred scrolls. Why do you bring this up, my ‘ring? What possible relevance can such nonsense have, at this time and place?

Scribes write down details of the pact. Soon High Sages will be called to witness and assent. (Prepare, my lower rings!) Meanwhile, we ponder again the anomaly brought to our waxy notice by the rewq, which still conveys vexing colors from Ro-kenn. Could they be shades of deceit! Deceit and amusement! Eager gladness to accept our offer, but only in appearance, buying time until-

Stop it,’we command our second ring, which gets carried away all too easily. It has read too many novels. We do not know the Rothen well enough to read subtle, complex meanings in his alien visage.

Besides, don’t we have Ro-kenn trapped? Has he not reason to fear the images on those plates of hard metal? Logically, he dare not risk them being passed on to incriminate his race, his line.

Or does he know something we do not?

Ah-what a silly question to ask, when pondering a star-god!

While hope courses the crowd, i/we grow more nervous by the dura. What if they care nothing about the photographs? Then Ro-kenn might agree to anything, for it would not matter what vows were signed, once his almighty ship arrives. From that point on, with his personal safety assured . . .

. . .

we never get a chance to complete that dripping contemplation. For suddenly, something new happens! Far too quickly for wax to ooze.

. . .

It begins with a shrill human cry-

One of the sycophants, a devoted Rothen-follower, points behind the star-beings, toward the raised bier where their two dead comrades lie-

Silky cloths had been draped across the two who were slain in the explosion. But now we see those coverings are pulled back, exposing the late Rothen and the late sky-human-

Do we now perceive Bloorthe Portraitist, poised with his recording device, attempting to photograph the faces of the dead!

Bloor ignores growls of anger rising from those-who-follow-the-Rothen-as-patrons. Calmly, he-slides out one exposed plate and inserts another. He appears entranced, focused on his art, even as attention turns his way from Rann, then an outraged Ro-kenn, who screams in terse Galactic Six-

Bloor glimpses the swooping robot and has time to perform one last act of professionalism. With his fragile body, the portraitist shields his precious camera and dies.

Have patience, you lesser rings that lie farthest from the senses. You must wait to caress these memories with our inner breath. For those who squat higher up our tapered cone, events come as a flurry of muddled images.

Behold—the livid anger of the star-gods, apoplectic with affronted rage!

Observe—the futile cries of Lester, Vubben, and Phwhoon-dau, beseeching restraint!

Witness—Bloor’s crumpled ruin, a smoldering heap!

Note—how the crowd backs away from the violence, even as other dark-clad figures rush inward from the forest rim!

Quail—from the roaring robots, charging up to strike, ready to slay at command!

Above all, stare—at the scene right before us, the one Bloor was photographing when he died. . . .

An image to preserve as long as this tower of rings stands.

Two beings lie side by side.

One, a human female, seems composed in death, her newly washed face serene, apparently at peace.

The other figure had seemed equally tranquil when we saw it last, before dawn. Ro-poPs visage was like an idealized human, impressive in height and breadth of brow, in strong cheekbones and the set of her womanlike chin, which in life had sustained a winning smile.

That is not what we see now!

Rather, a quivering thing, suffering its own death tremors, creeps off of Ro-pol’s face . . . taking much of that face with it! The very same brow and cheek and chin we had been pondering-these make up the body of the creature, which must have ridden the Rothen as a rewq rides one of the Six, nestled so smoothly in place that no join or seam was visible before.

Does this explain the dissonance? The clashing colors conveyed by our veteran rewq? When some parts of Ro-kenn’s face relayed tart emotions, others always seemed cool, unperturbed, and friendly.

It crawls aside, and onlookers gasp at what remains- a sharply narrower face, chinless and spiny, with cranial edges totally unlike a human being’s.

Gone is the mirage of heavenly comeliness in Earth-ling terms. Oh, the basic shape remains humanoid, but in a tapered, predatory caricature of our youngest sept.

“Hr-rm ... I have seen this face before,” croons Phwhoon-dau, stroking his white beard. “In my readings at Biblos. An obscure race, with a reputation for—“

Rann whips the coverings back over the corpses, while Ro-kenn shrilly interrupts, “This is the final out—

Until now.

The Rothen points to Rann, commanding—“Break radio silence and recall Kunn, now!”

“The prey will be warned,” Rann objects, clearly shaken. “And the hunters. Dare we risk—“

“We’ll take that chance. Obey now! Recall Kunn, then clear all of these away.”

Ro-kenn motions at the crowd, the sycophants, and all six sages.

“No one leaves to speak of this.”

The robots start to rise, crackling with dire strength. A moan of dread escapes the crowd.

Then—as is sometimes said in Earthling tales—All Hell Breaks Loose.

Our rewq now clearly show Ro-kenn as two beings, one a living mask. Gone is the patient amusement, the pretense at giving in to blackmail. Until now, we had nothing to blackmail with.

The Stranger

He strums the dulcimer slowly, plucking one low note at a time, feeling nervous over what he plans to attempt, yet also pleased by how much he is remembering.

About urs, for instance. Ever since first regaining consciousness aboard the little riverboat, he had tried to pin down why he felt so friendly toward the four-footed beings, despite their prickly, short-tempered natures. Back at the desert oasis, before the bloody ambush, he had listened to the ballad recited by the traitor Ulgor, without understanding more than a few click-phrases, here and there. Yet the rhythmic chant had seemed strangely familiar, tugging at associations within his battered brain.

Then, all at once, he recalled where he heard the tale before. In a bar, on faraway—

on faraway—

Names are still hard to come by. But now at least he has an image, rescued from imprisoned memory. A scene in a tavern catering to low-class sapient races like his own, frequented by star travelers sharing certain tastes in food, music, and entertainment. Often, songs were accepted as currency in such places. You could buy rounds of drinks with a good one, and he seldom had to pay cash, so desired were the tunes warbled by his talented crewmates.

. . . crewmates . . .

Now he confronts another barrier. The tallest, harshest wall across his mind. He tries once more but fails to come up with a melody to break it down.

Back to the bar, then. With that recollection had come things he once knew about urs. Especially a trick he used to pull on urrish companions when they dozed off, after a hard evening’s revelry. Sometimes he would take a peanut, aim carefully, and—

The Stranger’s train of thought breaks as he realizes he is being watched. UrKachu glares at him, clearly irritated by the increasing loudness of the thrumming dulcimer. He quickly mollifies the leader of the urrish ambushers by plucking at the string more softly. Still, he does not quite stop. At a lower, quieter level, the rhythm is mildly hypnotic, just as he intended it to be.

The other raiders-both urs and men-lie down or snooze through the broiling middle of the day. So does Sara, along with Prity and the other captives. The Stranger knows he should rest, too, but he feels too keyed up.

He misses Pzora, though it does seem strange to long for the healing touch of a Jophur—

No, that is the wrong word. Pzora is not one of those fearsome, cruel beings, but a traeki—something quite different. As he grows a little better at names, he is going to have to remember that.

Anyway, he has work to do. In the time remaining, he must learn to use the rewq that Sara bought for him—a strange creature whose filmy body covers his eyes, causing soft colors to waft around every urs and human, turning the shabby tent into a pavilion of revealing hues. He finds unnerving the way the rewq quivers over his flesh, using a sucker to feed from veins near the gaping wound in his head. Yet he cannot turn down a chance to explore yet another kind of communication. Sometimes the confusing colors coalesce to remind him of the last time he communed with Pzora, back at the oasis. There had been a moment of strange clarity when their cojoined rewqs seemed to help convey exactly what he wanted.

Pzora’s answering gift lies inside the hole in his head—the one place the raiders would never think to search.

He resists an urge to slip his hand inside, to check if it’s still there. All in good time.

While he sits and strums, the oppressive heat slowly mounts. Urrish and human heads sink lower to the ground, where night’s lingering coolness can still be dimly felt. He waits and tries to remember a little more.

His biggest blank zone-other than the loss of language-covers the recent past. If ten fingers represent the span of his life up to now, most of the final two digits are missing. All he has are the shreds that cling whenever he wakes from a dream. Enough to know he once roamed the linked galaxies and witnessed things none of his kind ever saw before. The seals holding back those memories have resisted everything he’s tried so far- drawing sketches, playing math games with Prity, wallowing in Pzora’s library of smells. He remains fairly certain the key will be found in music. But what music?

Sara snores softly nearby, and he feels a swelling of grateful fondness in his heart . . . combined with a nagging sense that there is someone else he should be thinking about. Another who had his devotion before searing fate swatted him out of the sky. A woman’s face flickers at a sharp angle to his thoughts, passing too swiftly to recognize-except for the wave of strong feelings it evokes.

He misses her . . . though he can’t imagine that she feels the same, wherever she may be.

Whoever she may be.

More than anything else, he wishes he could put his feelings into words, as he never did during all the dangerous times they spent together . . . times when she was pining for another . . . for a better man than he.

This thought thread is leading somewhere, he realizes, feeling some excitement. Avidly, he follows it. The woman in his dreams . . . she longs for a man . . . a hero who was lost long ago . . . a year or two ago . . . lost along with crewmates . . . and also along with . . .

. . . along with the Captain . . .

Yes, of course/ The commander they all missed so terribly, gone ever since a daring escape from that wretched water world. A world of disaster and triumph.

He tries conjuring an image of the Captain. A face. But all that comes to mind is a gray flash, a whirl of bubbles, and finally a glint of white, needlelike teeth. A smile unlike any other. Wise and serene.

Not human.

And then, out of nowhere, a soft warbling emerges. A sound never before heard on the Slope.

My good silent friend . . .

Lost in winter’s dread stormcloud . . .

Lonely . . . just like me . . . *

The whistles, creaks, and pops roll out of his mouth before he even knows he’s speaking them. His head rocks back as a dam seems to shatter in his mind, releasing a flood of memories.

The music he’d been looking for was of no human making, but the modern tongue of Earth’s third sapient race. A language painfully hard for humans to learn, but that rewarded those who tried. Trinary was nothing like Galactic Two or any other speech, except perhaps the groaning ballads sung by great whales who still plumbed the homeworld’s timeless depths.

Trinary.

He blinks in surprise and even loses his rhythm on the plucked dulcimer. A few urs lift their heads, staring at him blankly till he resumes the steady cadence, continuing reflexively while he ponders his amazing rediscovery. The familiar/uncanny fact that had eluded him till now.

His crewmates-perhaps they still await him in that dark, dreary place where he left them.

His crewmates were dolphins.